POLICY BRIEF

AFTER OSLO: RETHINKING THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION KHALED ELGINDY

JUNE 2018

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY While the option of a single state (one person, one vote) may be ideal from an egalitarian point of With the Oslo peace process effectively dead, view, given Israeli opposition and the persistence prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli- of two distinct national movements, it remains, Palestinian issue may soon follow suit. Although at present, nonviable. Confederation models are territorial partition remains theoretically useful in that they allow both peoples to exercise possible, the success of Israel’s settlement self-determination and national self-expression enterprise along with the Palestinian Authority’s without physical or territorial separation. continued decline and possible collapse threaten Despite the various practical and theoretical to eliminate chances for a viable Palestinian shortcomings of confederation, its real value state once and for all. Moreover, the precarious may be less as an alternative to the two-state political consensus that has helped to keep the solution than in providing new ways of thinking two-state solution alive within Israeli, Palestinian, about two states—by expanding the universe of and even American politics for nearly two possible options and negotiating tools available decades is now collapsing on all sides. Given the to the two sides. Given the highly inequitable and likely demise of the traditional partition model, unsustainable nature of the current one-state the time has come to begin looking seriously at reality and dwindling prospects for a traditional the full range of potential solutions—as distinct two-state solution, it would be irresponsible not from outcomes—including confederation and to explore the full range of potential solutions. even binationalism.

INTRODUCTION peace process also portends the demise of a two- state solution and, if so, what alternatives there The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is dead—not might be. For nearly two decades, the conventional “comatose” or on “life support,” just plain dead. wisdom in Washington and most of the international Indeed, the Oslo process that began in 1993 had community has held that peace between Israelis already exhausted itself before President Donald and Palestinians could only be achieved through Trump’s arrival in the White House in January 2017. the creation of two independent states, Israel and Trump’s decision in December 2017 to recognize Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, overturning seven However, physical as well as political developments decades of U.S. policy and international consensus, over that time period have all but foreclosed the was merely the fatal blow in a process that had possibility of a clean territorial division of the land. been dying a slow death for more than a decade. The likely demise of the traditional partition model The question now is whether the death of the

1 makes it imperative to begin exploring alternative sovereignty—the minimum requirements for a solutions, including rethinking some of our basic viable and contiguous Palestinian state. Indeed, the assumptions regarding borders, sovereignty, and domestic political and financial costs for any Israeli citizenship. leader or government that attempted to do so would be more or less prohibitive. COLLAPSING PILLARS At the same time, the future of the Palestinian The broad contours of a two-state solution have Authority (PA), the most tangible expression of a been known since President Bill Clinton laid out his future Palestinian state, looks bleaker than ever. parameters for a permanent status agreement in The PA has been plagued by a precipitous drop in December 2000. The Clinton Parameters envisioned international donor aid, which now stands at nearly an independent Palestinian state based on the half of what it was in 2013, along with a budget 1967 borders encompassing all of Gaza and roughly deficit of around $800 million.2 Adding to the PA’s 95 percent of the West Bank, plus mutually agreed financial woes, Congress has enacted further aid upon land swaps, including a sovereign Palestinian cuts that could eliminate roughly half of the $215 capital in East Jerusalem.1 Sovereignty over the million in economic assistance to the Palestinians.3 highly contentious Al-Aqsa Mosque/Temple Mount Meanwhile, the 11-year-old division between compound would be divided between Palestine and Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah-dominated government in Israel. Only a limited number of Palestinian refugees the West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has would be allowed to return to Israel with the bulk paralyzed Palestinian institutional politics, eroded the being resettled in the Palestinian state. Subsequent legitimacy of the Palestinian leadership, and added a negotiating rounds—in 2001, 2008, and 2013- new layer of instability to an already volatile conflict. 14—were more or less in line with these principles. Since the 2007 split, the PA has had no functioning Although a two-state solution remains theoretically parliament or even a meaningful political opposition possible, the practical and political pillars of the classic to answer to, leaving President Abbas to rule by two-state model have collapsed or are collapsing. decree. As his sphere of control continues to shrink both physically and politically, Abbas has grown This is mainly due to the enormous success of increasingly authoritarian and paranoid, jailing critics Israel’s settlement enterprise. On the eve of the and lashing out at would-be rivals and challengers, 1993 Oslo Accords, there were roughly 250,000 both real and imagined. Israeli settlers living beyond the Green Line. After a quarter century of “peace processing,” that number While the international community remains officially now stands at more than 640,000. Roughly two- wedded to a two-state solution, the issue has taken thirds of the Israeli settler population is concentrated a backseat to other priorities like the Syrian civil war, in and around East Jerusalem. While such physical the global refugee crisis, and the threat posed by Iran realities are theoretically reversible, in the absence and its allies. This applies to many of Washington’s of meaningful American or international pressure, Arab allies like Saudi Arabia as well, for whom the Israeli leaders have little or no incentive to remove Palestinian issue no longer seems to be a pressing upward of 150,000 Israeli settlers from the West priority or is an impediment to security and economic Bank or transfer parts of Jerusalem to Palestinian ties with Israel.

1 Bill Clinton, “The Clinton Parameters: Clinton Proposal on Israeli-Palestinian Peace,” (meeting minutes, Washington, DC, December 23, 2000), http://ecf.org.il/media_items/568. 2 Juha Kahkonen and Yan Sun, “West Bank and Gaza,” (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, March 2018), http://www. imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/CR/2018/west-bank-and-gaza-030918-report-to-ahlc.ashx; Gregg Carlstrom, “How Israel Won the War and Defeated the Palestinian Dream,” Newsweek, August 29, 2017, http://www.newsweek.com/israel-palestinians- war-occupation-gaza-west-bank-trump-kushner-abbas-two-656304. 3 Michael Wilner, “Palestinians Slam Congress’s Passage of Taylor Force Act,” Jerusalem Post, March 24, 2018, https://www. jpost.com/American-Politics/Palestinians-slam-Congresss-passage-of-Taylor-Force-Act-546958.

2 Meanwhile, the precarious political consensus that In Washington, support for a two-state solution is has kept the two-state solution afloat since the no longer a matter of bipartisan consensus. “So I’m 1990s is already collapsing on all sides. In Israel, looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the a majority of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s one that both parties like,” President Trump told ruling coalition openly opposes the creation of a journalists assembled in the Oval Office during a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and press briefing with Netanyahu a few weeks into his Gaza Strip, while Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, presidency.8 While many saw it as a throw-away seems to be inching toward annexation.4 While line or a sign of the president’s steep learning polls still show a plurality of Israelis support the goal curve, Trump’s Jerusalem declaration and other of two states, the Israeli public is more concerned policies suggest there is more to it. While previous with economic matters and external threats from American administrations had steadily chipped Iran than with resolution of the Palestinian issue.5 away at the basic principles undergirding the peace process, including U.N. Security Council Resolution Even in the occupied territories, the Palestinian 242 and the “land for peace” formula, the Trump constituency that has traditionally been the most administration has been less shy about tipping supportive of an independent state in the West the scales in Israel’s favor and more explicit in Bank and Gaza, a slim majority of Palestinians now attempts to rewrite the basic ground rules of the 6 opposes a two-state solution. A growing number of peace process. Palestinians, particularly those who came of age during the Oslo years, are abandoning the goal In addition to taking Jerusalem “off the table,”9 of an independent state in favor of a struggle for Trump has yet to express unambiguous support equal rights in a single state. Among those who for Palestinian statehood or for ending Israel’s have lost faith in the “Oslo generation” is Tareq occupation, as each of the last three U.S. presidents Abbas, the son of the Palestinian president. “If you have done. The Trump administration has instead don’t want to give me independence, at least give said that the United States would support a two- me civil rights,” the younger Abbas told The New state solution “if agreed to by both sides,”10 thus York Times. “That’s an easier way, peaceful way. I giving Israel a veto over whether Washington should don’t want to throw anything, I don’t want to hate support an independent Palestinian state—a major anybody, I don’t want to shoot anybody. I want to be shift in U.S. policy. Meanwhile, leaked details under the law.”7 of the administration’s much-anticipated peace

4 Luke Baker, “Netanyahu non-committal on Palestinian Statehood as he heads to U.S.,” Reuters, February 13, 2017, https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-israel-idUSKBN15S188; Jonathan Lis, “Netanyahu Blocks Settlement Annexation Bill From Coming to a Vote,” Haaretz, February 12, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-blocks-settlement-annexation- bill-from-coming-to-a-vote-1.5809143. 5 “Palestinian-Israeli Pulse: A Joint Poll,” (Tel Aviv, Israel and Ramallah, West Bank: Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, August 2017), http://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/696. 6 “Public Opinion Poll No-67,” (Ramallah, West Bank: Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, April 2018), http://www. pcpsr.org/en/node/725. 7 Jodi Rudoren, “A Divide Among Palestinians on a Two-State Solution,” The New York Times, March 18, 2014, https://www. nytimes.com/2014/03/19/world/middleeast/a-divide-among-palestinians-on-a-two-state-solution.html. 8 Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, “Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel in Joint Press Conference,” (press conference, Washington, DC, February 15, 2017), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/ remarks-president-trump-prime-minister-netanyahu-israel-joint-press-conference/. 9 Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump), “...peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?” Twitter, January 2, 2018, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/ status/948322497602220032?lang=en. 10 Donald Trump, “Statement by President Trump on Jerusalem,” (speech, Washington, DC, December 6, 2017), https://www. whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-jerusalem/.

3 plan point to something much less than a fully East Jerusalem live as de facto residents of Israel sovereign Palestinian state.11 The decision by the but without formal citizenship rights.17 Another 2.7 State Department to drop references to the West million Palestinians live under the jurisdiction of Bank and Gaza Strip as “occupied territories” the Palestinian Authority in roughly 39 percent of from its annual human rights report suggests the West Bank.18 At the bottom of the totem pole that occupation denial is coming alarmingly close are roughly 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, to being normalized at the official level.12 For its which despite being governed by the Palestinian part, the Republican Party expunged references to militant group Hamas, is still under Israel’s effective a two-state solution from its 2016 platform while control and whose movement in and out of the declaring that it “reject[s] the false notion that Israel impoverished coastal enclave remains severely is an occupier.”13 Despite the growing prevalence restricted.19 Indeed, if the West Bank and Gaza of such views, the discourse of occupation denial are not occupied, the only other way to understand and Israeli triumphalism that seems to have taken Israel’s continued control over millions of people hold on both the Israeli and American right fails to while denying them basic citizenship rights would address the political and demographic realities on be as a form of apartheid. the ground, and may ultimately prove to be equally problematic for Israel.14 EVALUATING POSSIBLE SCENARIOS Today, only one state—Israel—controls all of the General observations and criteria territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the In thinking about the range of possible scenarios Jordan River, with a population that is more or less and options, it is important to bear in mind a few evenly divided between Arabs and Jews. On one basic principles. The first is the critical distinction side are roughly 6.5 million Israeli Jews with full between outcomes and solutions, as such. That citizenship rights living on both sides of the 1967 there is international consensus on the need for line, and on the other an almost equal number of a two-state solution does not change the fact that Palestinian Arabs with varying degrees of legal and Israelis and Palestinians live in a one-state reality. political rights.15 The latter includes approximately Secondly, power dynamics matter. Israel has the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel who face ability to shape or impose outcomes in ways that institutional discrimination in various facets of Palestinians do not. How viable or sustainable life.16 Around 350,000 Palestinians in occupied such unilaterally imposed outcomes may be is, of

11 Anne Barnard, David M. Halbfinger, and Peter Baker, “Talk of a Peace Plan That Snubs Palestinians Roils Middle East,”The New York Times, December 3, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/03/world/middleeast/palestinian-saudi-peace-plan. html. 12 Amir Tibon, “Under Trump, U.S. Human Rights Report No Longer Calls West Bank ‘Occupied’,” Haaretz, April 21, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-under-trump-u-s-no-longer-calls-west-bank-occupied-1.6013432. 13 “Republican Platform 2016,” (Washington, DC: Republican National Convention, 2016), https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/ media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5b1%5d-ben_1468872234.pdf. 14 Jerome S. Kaufman, “A Long Overdue Solution to the Perennial Israeli-Arab Conflict,”Israel Commentary, May 7, 2017, http:// israel-commentary.org/tag/palestinians-will-have-to-pass-through-the-bitter-crucible-of-defeat/. 15 “Israel in Figures: Selected Data From the Statistical Abstract of Israel,” (Givat Shaul, Jerusalem: The Central Bureau of Statistics, 2017), http://www.cbs.gov.il/www/publications/isr_in_n17e.pdf; Yotam Berger, “Figures Presented by Army Show More Arabs Than Jews Live in Israel, West Bank and Gaza,” Haaretz, March 26, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/army- presents-figures-showing-arab-majority-in-israel-territories-1.5940676. 16 “Arab Minority Rights,” The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, https://www.acri.org.il/en/category/arab-citizens-of-israel/ arab-minority-rights/. 17 “East Jerusalem: Fact and Figures 2017,” (Tel Aviv, Israel: The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, May 2017), https://www. acri.org.il/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Facts-and-Figures-2017-1.pdf. 18 “Indicators,” Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, State of Palestine, http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/site/lang__en/881/default. aspx#Population. 19 “UN: We still consider Gaza ‘occupied,”’ January 19, 2012, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYEjDR6Xpqo.

4 course, another matter. In broad terms, therefore, a to Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005.21 solution is an outcome that is deemed acceptable Under such a scenario, Israel would retain overall to both sides of the conflict and that is reasonably security control over the West Bank, including its equitable in nature—that is, one that is not premised borders and natural resources. However, the Gaza on the domination, subjugation, or expulsion of experience proved to be traumatic for both sides. one group by another. In other words, an equitable From Israel’s standpoint, a unilateral evacuation, solution necessarily is one that affords the right of even one that is coordinated with the PA, promises self-determination to all people in the Holy Land, considerable pain while offering very little gain. A whether Jews or Arabs, regardless of the political decision to evacuate tens of thousands of settlers or demographic configuration. Ideally, since from lands many Israelis regard as the biblical neither Israeli nor Palestinian societies are as of heartland would meet stiff resistance from pro- yet post-nationalist in orientation, such a solution settlement elements in the Knesset and could well should also allow (or at least not deny) Israelis and bring down any Israeli government that attempts it. Palestinians a measure of national self-expression. Such a scenario also provides no guarantee that Finally, a solution should be reasonably sustainable evacuated areas would not be used as a launching over time—that is, not likely to induce a desire by ground for attacks on Israelis. Such a plan would the disadvantaged side to overturn it. The defining have even less appeal for Palestinians, for whom feature of any outcome or solution is sovereignty— the prospect of expanding PA jurisdiction by a few in terms of which party exercises it and where, and square kilometers is unlikely to offset the risks to whether it is on a de facto or a de jure basis. their strategic interests: consolidating Israel’s de facto annexation of the major settlement blocs and Non-solution outcomes the Jordan Valley while further isolating Palestinian Despite the protracted nature of Israel’s occupation, East Jerusalem, most likely permanently. In any now more than half a century old, the prospect of event, separation without a division of sovereignty, Israel maintaining permanent or indefinite control or attempting to give up responsibility for the over millions of stateless Palestinians while Palestinian population without relinquishing denying them citizenship and other basic rights is control, amounts to a variation of the status quo. a recipe for continued conflict and instability and is Annexation of parts of the West Bank is another ultimately unsustainable. In his valedictory speech, scenario that seems to be gaining ground former Secretary of State John Kerry summed up among Israelis, though it is equally fraught with the dilemma facing the two countries: “How does complications for Israel. Israeli education minister Israel reconcile a permanent occupation with its and leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home democratic ideals? How does the U.S. continue to Party, Naftali Bennett, has called for annexing defend that and still live up to our own democratic Israeli settlements and up to 60 percent of ideals? Nobody has ever provided good answers to the West Bank.22 The remaining areas, made 20 those questions because there aren’t any.” up of disconnected pockets under Palestinian This dilemma has led some on the Israeli center/ jurisdiction, would remain under overall Israeli left to propose partial remedies, such as a unilateral control. It is unclear whether the roughly 250,000- evacuation from portions of the West Bank, similar 300,000 Palestinians now living in the areas would

20 John Kerry, “Speech on Israeli Settlements,” (speech, Washington, DC, December 28, 2017), http://time.com/4619064/john- kerrys-speech-israel-transcript/. 21 Ari Rusila, “Constructive Unilateralism: Leftist Approach to Israel-Palestine Conflict,”Peace and Collaborative Development Network, September 16, 2015, https://pcdnetwork.org/blogs/constructive-unilateralism-leftist-approach-to-israel-palestine- conflict/. 22 Jeremy Sharon, “Bennett: We Will Annex ma’aleh Adumm First And Then All of Area C,” Jerusalem Post, January 2, 2017, https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Bennett-We-will-annex-Maaleh-Adumim-first-and-then-the-rest-of-Area-C-477236.

5 be granted full Israeli citizenship or something One state with equal rights more akin to the separate and unequal status of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Either way, the At the other end of the sovereignty spectrum is the “bantustanization” of the West Bank would likely option of a single state with equal citizenship rights only fuel parallels with apartheid South Africa. for both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The idea of binationalism is less alien than it seems. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS The original “Jewish state” envisioned by the U.N. Partition Plan in 1947 included nearly equal Partition numbers of Arabs and Jews.25 The Israeli military regime that governed the country’s Arab citizens Dividing the Holy Land into two sovereign states, until 1966 also provides a precedent for the which theoretically satisfies both groups’ desire for transition from military rule to enfranchisement of self-determination and national self-expression, Palestinians within its borders. Moreover, with Arabs has long been the preferred option in the wider today comprising a fifth of its population, Israel is in international community, dating back to the many respects already a binational state—even as 1937 Peel Commission.23 It has also been the its politics are becoming increasingly exclusionary most elusive. Despite the existence of a broad and illiberal.26 international consensus around the goal of creating two states based on the 1967 borders, in Despite its egalitarian nature, however, the one- accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution person-one-vote model is not politically viable, at 242, repeated attempts to negotiate such an least at present. While it would allow both Jews and outcome have consistently come up short. While Arabs the right to self-determination, it is difficult to many have come to think of the partition model see how a one-state solution would overcome the as one in which each side gets “half a loaf,” the competing (and often mutually exclusive) nature parties—or at least influential constituencies of their respective nationalist narratives. The vast among them—have been more inclined to view it majority of Israeli Jews continue to oppose the as negotiating over “half a baby.” The only other integration and enfranchisement of millions of basis for territorial division with any grounding in Palestinians, which would effectively end the Jewish international law would be United Nations General character of the state.27 Among Palestinians, the Assembly Resolution 181, the 1947 Partition Plan, most prominent advocates for a one-state solution although neither side seems inclined to reopen this have traditionally been found in the diaspora, an file at the present time.24 important Palestinian constituency, but one which has never had a stake in either the Oslo process or in the two-state model.28 Although growing

23 League of Nations, Report of the Palestine Royal Commission (Peel Commission), C.495.M.336.1937.VI., (November 30, 1937), https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal. nsf/561c6ee353d740fb8525607d00581829/08e38a718201458b052565700072b358?OpenDocument. 24 “The Plan of Partition and end of the British Mandate,” in The Question of Palestine: Brochure DPI/2517/Rev.1, (Geneva: The United Nations Department of Public Information, March 2003), 9-15, http://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/palestine/ch2.pdf. 25 United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, “Historical Survey of Efforts of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine to Secure the Implementation of Paragraph 11 of General Assembly Resolution 194 (III),” A/AC.25/W/81/Rev.2, (October 2, 1961), https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal. nsf/0/3E61557F8DE6781A052565910073E819. 26 Jacob Kennedy, “Israel’s Increasingly Illiberal Politics,” International Affairs Review, October 5, 2016, http://www.iar-gwu.org/ content/israel%E2%80%99s-increasingly-illiberal-politics. 27 Gil Hoffman, “’Huge Majority Opposes One-State Solution Between Israel, Palestinians’,” Jerusalem Post, February 16, 2017, https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Huge-majority-opposes-one-state-solution-481801. 28 Yousef Munayyer, “Let’s Talk About a One-State Solution Where Israelis and Palestinians are Equal,” Time, February 17, 2017, http://time.com/4675067/israel-palestinians-one-state-solution-trump/.

6 numbers of Palestinians in the occupied territories The main advantage of the confederation approach are embracing the idea as well, there is not yet lies in its recognition that both peoples, Israelis and an organized political movement or actor pushing Palestinians, continue to maintain an attachment to in that direction on the Palestinian scene. This both sides of the 1967 border. Confederation also may have to do with the fragmented nature of opens up the possibility of new solutions to some of Palestinian politics writ large, and thus could very the most intractable issues of the conflict.31 For one, well change in the coming years. For the time being, Palestinian refugees wishing to return to their former however, even Hamas, which has a long history of homes or villages could live in Israel as legal residents violent opposition to the Oslo process and which while gaining citizenship in a Palestinian state in the rejects any recognition of Israel, has steadily come West Bank and Gaza, thus fulfilling their dream of to terms with a Palestinian state in the West Bank, return without altering Israel’s demographic balance. East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.29 The prospect of open borders would also allow some settlers (for example in highly disruptive settlements Confederation like Maale Adumim or Ariel) to reside in a Palestinian There is another set of options that may offer a state while maintaining their citizenship in and access reasonably equitable solution to the conflict, but to Israel, thus reducing the political and financial which has largely been overlooked by American costs associated with a largescale evacuation by policymakers. The idea of some form of shared Israel while minimizing damage to the contiguity sovereignty, or confederation, offers a potential way of Palestinian state. The idea of open borders also around some of the most difficult challenges posed helps to avoid many of the practical problems arising by either hard partition or strict binationalism. The from a territorial division of Jerusalem, particularly in basic idea behind confederation is that it is possible the highly contentious Old City and its surroundings. to divide sovereignty in the Holy Land without physical Once again, there are precedents from which to draw. or territorial separation. The key to such confederal For instance, the 1947 partition plan, the original models, such as the Israeli-Palestinian Creative two-state solution, envisioned a territorial division Regional Initiative’s (IPCRI) “Two States in One “with economic union.”32 Similarly, during the Taba Space” proposal or the “Two States, One Homeland” negotiations of 2001, the two sides discussed the project, rests on the concept of creating open borders option of an open city in Jerusalem, although they between Israel and Palestine in which citizens of had different definitions of what that would mean.33 both states enjoy full freedom of movement, and Indeed, the status quo of a Palestinian Authority even residency, in the whole of the land between the operating under indefinite Israeli occupation is itself 30 River and the Sea. a mixed model of sorts—albeit on a highly inequitable and unsustainable basis.

29 See, for instance, “Hamas accepts Palestinian state with 1967 borders,” Al Jazeera, May 2, 2017, https://www.aljazeera. com/news/2017/05/hamas-accepts-palestinian-state-1967-borders-170501114309725.html; Eyder Peralta, “Hamas Foreign Minister: We Accept Two-State Solution With ‘67 Borders,” NPR, May 17, 2011, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2011/05/24/136403918/hamas-foreign-minister-we-accept-two-state-solution-with-67-borders. 30 “Two States in One Space: A New Proposed Framework for Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” (Jerusalem: Israel Palestine Creative Regional Initiatives, November 2014), https://issuu.com/ipcri/docs/two_states_in_one_space; “Two States One Homeland, Together and Separate: One Land, Two States New Horizons for peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” A Land for All, http://www.alandforall.org/en. 31 See, for example, Omar M. Dajani, “Divorce without Separation? Reimagining the Two-State Solution,” Ethnopolitics 15, no. 4 (August 2016): 366-379, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17449057.2016.1210347?journalCode=reno20; Dahlia Scheindlin and Dov Waxman, “Confederalism: A Third Way for Israel-Palestine,” The Washington Quarterly 39, no. 4 (Spring 2016): 84-94, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0163660X.2016.1170482. 32 U.N. General Assembly, Resolution 181 (II), Future Government of Palestine, A/RES/181(II), (November 28, 1947), https:// unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/7F0AF2BD897689B785256C330061D253. 33 “The Taba Negotiations (January 2001),” Journal of Palestine Studies 31, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 79-89, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/pdf/10.1525/jps.2002.31.3.79.pdf.

7 To be sure, the challenges and shortcomings While it may be hard to imagine a political associated with confederal models are not environment in which either of these options insignificant. With many more “moving parts” to becomes politically viable, it was not so long connect, confederation would be considerably ago that the same could be said of the two-state messier and more difficult to negotiate than either solution. Indeed, with prospects for a traditional the traditional two-state or one-state models. In two-state solution growing dimmer by the day, it addition, confederation assumes a much greater would be irresponsible not to. level of trust and goodwill between the parties than presently exists. Indeed, the prospect of allowing Indeed, the more we insist on framing the debate Israeli settlers to remain in their present locations in strict binary terms as a choice between partition raises difficult challenges for both sides. Israelis and binationalism, the more attractive the latter would be reluctant to entrust the safety of their will seem as an alternative solution. In other words, citizens to any Palestinian government; likewise, in order to salvage the possibility of a two-state Palestinians would have a hard time legitimizing solution we may first need to abandon it on some Israeli settlers and settlements, whose presence level. was established through coercive means and very often on confiscated Palestinian land. In the end, the question of how to manage security, which would require even more intensive cooperation than exists today under the Oslo framework, particularly in light of the massive power asymmetry between the two sides, may pose the biggest challenge in finding a workable confederation model.

In the end, the real value of confederal models may be less as an alternative to the two-state solution than in providing new ways of thinking about two states. Despite its many shortcomings, confederation can help expand the range of possible options and negotiating tools available to the two sides—particularly at a time when physical realities have all but foreclosed the classic two-state model and political conditions do not yet allow for an egalitarian, one-state option. Wherever one stands on the conflict or how best to resolve it, there is little doubt that the traditional Oslo framework that has guided American and international policy for the last quarter century has become obsolete. In addition to engaging in a full and frank discussion on how and why the peace process failed, it is high time for U.S. policymakers and the broader international community to begin exploring the full range of possible solutions, including binationalism and confederation.

8 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Khaled Elgindy is a fellow with the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He previously served as an adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on permanent status negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009, and was a key participant in the Annapolis negotiations held throughout 2008. Elgindy is the author of the forthcoming book, Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians from Balfour to Obama (Brookings Institution Press, 2019).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to express his gratitude to Tamara Wittes and Martin Indyk for their invaluable advice and feedback on the drafts and to Israa Saber for her research and other support in this project, as well as to Anthony Yazaki and Rachel Slattery for their work in the editing, formatting, and distribution of the final product. The author owes a special debt of gratitude to Samer Khoury and Ramez Sousou for their generous support of his work at the Center.

Brookings recognizes that the value it provides to any supporter is in its absolute commitment to quality, independence, and impact. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment, and the analysis and recommendations of the Institution’s scholars are not determined by any donation.

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